Three Tips on Using Capacity as a Business Strategy

You're not lazy; you're out of spoons.

You don't have to have a chronic illness to experience spoon theory. It shows up when you're stressed, bone-tired, or overburdened by your roles and responsibilities.

Here's where it comes from. In 2003, Christine Miserandino wrote an essay called "The Spoon Theory" on her website, But You Don't Look Sick. She was at a diner when her best friend watched her take her medication and asked what it was actually like to live with lupus.

Miserandino gathered up the spoons from their table and the ones nearby, handed them over, and explained that each one represented a unit of energy. Getting dressed costs a spoon. So does the commute, the hard conversation, the errand you keep putting off. Healthy people never count, because they never run out. The rest of us start each morning with a finite number and spend the day doing math.

Living with chronic illness is a spoon game, a worse version of Monopoly, which is really saying something. Land on someone else's emotional property and you're paying rent you never budgeted for, until one day you're bankrupt.

And to my fellow spoonies: This one is for you.

I've been mismanaging my spoons since I was 14

That's when I was diagnosed with lupus. I spent over a decade in community mental health, first as a provider and then as a therapist, giving so much in the pursuit of being "normal" that it nearly cost me my life.

Then I had a heart attack.

The day after, sitting in a hospital bed, I was grateful to be alive and wondering why it had taken me so long to address my own health. That question is where The Unburdened Life was born. I wanted the answer for myself, and for all the women I'd watched put themselves below everyone else.

These days I budget my week before I book it, and I hold two days where nothing gets scheduled at all.

The Spoon Audit

Before we start, a reminder: You are doing enough, even when what you're doing is taking care of yourself.

1. Count the week in spoons, not hours

Look back at the last seven days and ask what each thing actually cost you, not how long it took. The 20-minute call you dreaded for three days cost more than the 2-hour block you enjoyed. Get your free Spoonie Budget Planner here.

2. Create a moment to disconnect

As female founders, there's a constant urgency to be "on." Spend 15 minutes with your phone charging in another room. It's plugged in to recharge. So are you.

3. Notice your breathing

Are you breathing from your chest or your belly? Chest breathing tells your body it's in danger, and your body believes it. Take a long, slow breath in and let your stomach fill. Hold it a moment. Then release through pursed lips until the air is gone.

None of this requires a diagnosis. It just requires being honest about what your week is actually costing you.

My goal is to help women, fellow spoonies, and anyone running on empty find the path between who they are right now and who they want to be. If you want to run the Spoon Audit on a real week, I built the tool for it: The Spoon Budget Planner, a free 16-page weekly system for spending the energy you actually have. Fixed costs, flexible spends, refills, and a daily check-in for the gap between what you planned and what it really took. Download it here.